


Rival

by hafren



Category: Hornblower (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-19
Updated: 2009-11-19
Packaged: 2017-10-03 09:14:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hafren/pseuds/hafren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The various rivals for Horatio's notice, and his heart</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rival

On the shore there is a woman. She is looking out at a departing ship, and the man commanding it.

When he was at home, he could see the ship from his bedroom window. He spent a lot of time watching it, while she watched him, knowing he wished he were aboard. In the house he moved awkwardly, entering rooms as if he did not feel at home in them, often starting up and going "out for some air", as if cramped for space, though she knew that a cabin aboard a sloop, even a captain's cabin, must be more cramped by far.

Now she sees him move easily about the deck, his territory. She cannot see his face, so far off, but she guesses his brow is clear, his eyes alight with ... not happiness exactly, more a sense of being where he is meant to be. At home.

Despite the ship's male name, she knows the crew think of it as a woman; so does she, sometimes. Certainly it seems like something living. It is what takes him into danger and what she must rely on to bring him safe home. She hopes it cannot guess how much she hates it.

She cannot catch his eye; he does not look back to shore, occupied as he is.

Bush's glance rests on her, though she does not remark it. It is a look of pity, almost of comradeship. He might have felt jealous of her, for having what he wants, if he did not know that she does not have it either.

He does not look for long. No captain expects his first lieutenant to be wool-gathering on deck, this one least of all. Friendship will not signify, if things are not to his liking. Bush would not have it otherwise.

When it became known about Portsmouth that he was to sail as the _Hotspur_'s first lieutenant, congratulations were mixed with veiled sympathy. Those who knew he had been second lieutenant to Hornblower's third found it hard to believe he could sink his resentment at being overtaken.

He could have laughed in their faces, when he recalled his feelings the first time he called Hornblower "sir". As if the pieces of a puzzle had suddenly fitted into place; as if something that had always been amiss had silently come right.

There was no jealousy of rank in him then; nor is there now, as he watches the crew about their work. He is hawk-eyed for any shortcoming, wanting to be found faultless.

Unlike Maria, he is not jealous of the ship, either. For him, it is the world where everything, and everyone, is in the right place. Where Hornblower is in his eye all day - all night too, if he happens to have given up his quarters to some guest and comes asking apologetically if he can share. Of course, Bush knows the ship is closer to Hornblower than he will ever be, but since that is also true for the rest of humanity, he can live with it. It is the land, for Bush, that is his enemy, that keeps him from where he would be. But the land is a poor opponent, not worth his envy; he knows it has no pull for Hornblower.

The captain pauses for a word, his smile kindling Bush's, and there is nowhere else in the world, at this moment, that Bush would rather be. The swell of the sea beneath him, and the taste of its salt air, and the way his heart sings and lifts like the sails in the wind.

And as Hornblower turns away, Bush catches sight of the ribbon in his queue, and something tightens in his throat. One bit of ribbon looks much like another, but Bush knows where this one came from, because Clive the doctor told him how Hornblower untied a ribbon from his hair and fastened it in that of a dead man, taking his in exchange.

Bush fancies himself in a contest against anyone living. But dead men have an unfair advantage. They stay young for ever, and grow more perfect with each day they are remembered. This one lies in a plain, unvisited grave at Kingston, and Bush does not envy him that. But he does covet the other place where his rival lives, and will always be.


End file.
